THE OLD CONTEMPTIBLES: THE GOOD WORD.

BY BOYD CABLE.

It is quite inadequate to say that the troops were worn out, and indeed it is hard to find words to convey to anyone who has not experienced some days of a mixture of fighting and forced marching how utterly exhausted, how dead beat, how stupefied and numbed in mind and body the men were. For four days and nights they had fought and dug trenches and marched, and fought again, and halted to dig again, and fought again, and extricated themselves under hailing bullets and pouring shells from positions they never expected to leave alive, only to scramble together into some sort of ragged-shaped units and march again. And all this was under a fierce August sun, with irregular meals and sometimes no meals, at odd times with a scarcity or complete want of water, at all times with a burning lack and want of sleep.

This want of sleep was the worst of it all. Any sort of fighting is heavy sleep inducing; when it is prolonged for days and nights without one good full, satisfying sleep, the desire for rest becomes a craving, an all-absorbing aching passion. At first a man wants a bed or space to lie down and stretch his limbs and pillow his head and sink into dreamless oblivion; at last he would give his last possession merely to be allowed to lean against a wall, to stand upright on his feet and close his eyes. To keep awake is torture, to lift and move each foot is a desperate effort, to keep the burning eyes open and seeing an agony. It takes the most tremendous effort of will to contemplate another five minutes of wakefulness, another hundred yards to be covered; and here were hours, endless hours, of wakefulness, miles and tens of miles to be covered.

Cruelly hard as the conditions were for the whole retreating army, the rear-guard suffered the worst by a good deal. They were under the constant threat of attack, were halted every now and then under that threat or to allow the main body to keep a sufficient distance, had to make some attempt to dig in again, had to endure spasmodic shelling either in their shallow trenches or as they marched along the road.

By the fourth day the men were reduced to the condition of automatons. They marched—no, it could hardly be said any longer that they ‘marched’; they stumbled and staggered along like drunken men; their chins were sunk on their chests, their jaws hung slack, their eyes were set in a fixed and glassy stare, or blinked, and shut and opened heavily, slowly, and drowsily, their feet trailed draggingly, their knees sagged under them. When the word passed to halt, the front ranks took a minute or two to realise its meaning and obey, and the ranks behind bumped into them and raised heads and vacant staring eyes for a moment and let them drop again in a stupor of apathy. The change, the cessation of automatic motion was too much for many men; once halted they could no longer keep their feet, and dropped and sat or rolled helplessly to lie in the dust of the road. These men who fell were almost impossible to rouse. They sank into sleep that was almost a swoon, and no shaking or calling or cursing could rouse them or get them up again. The officers, knowing this, tried to keep them from sitting or lying down, moved, staggering themselves as they walked, to and fro along the line, exhorting, begging, beseeching, or scolding and swearing and ordering the men to keep up, to stand, to be ready to move on. And when the order was given again, the pathetically ridiculous order to ‘Quick march,’ the front ranks slowly roused and shuffled off, and the rear stirred slowly and with an effort heaved their rifles over their shoulders again and reeled after the leaders.

Scores of the men had abandoned packs and haversacks, all of them had cast away their overcoats. Many had taken their boots off and marched with rags or puttees wound round their blistered and swollen feet. But no matter what one or other or all had thrown away, there was no man without his rifle, his full ammunition pouches, and his bayonet. These things weighed murderously, cut deep and agonisingly into the shoulders, cramped arms and fingers to an aching numbness; but every man clung to them, had never a thought of throwing them into the ditch, although many of them had many thoughts of throwing themselves there.

Many fell out—fell out in the literal as well as the drill sense of the word; swerved to the side of the road and missed foot in the ditch and fell there, or stumbled in the ranks, tripped, lacking the brain or body quickness to recover themselves, collapsed, and rolled and lay helpless. Others, again, gasped a word or two to a comrade or an N.C.O., stumbled out of the ranks to the roadside, sank down with hanging head and rounded shoulders to a sitting position. Few or none of these men deliberately lay down. They sat till the regiment had plodded his trailing length past, tried to stagger to knees and feet, succeeded, and stood swaying a moment, and then lurched off after the rear ranks; or failed, stared stupidly after them, collapsed again slowly and completely. All these were left to lie where they fell. It was useless to urge them to move, because every officer and N.C.O. knew that no man gave up while he had an ounce of strength or energy left to carry on, that orders or entreaties had less power to keep a man moving than his own dogged pluck and will, that when these failed to keep a man going nothing else could succeed.

All were not, of course, so hopelessly done as this. There were still a number of the tougher muscled, the firmer willed, who kept their limbs moving with conscious volition, who still retained some thinking power, who even at times exchanged a few words or a mouthful of curses. These, and the officers, kept the whole together, kept them moving by force of example, set the pace for them and gave them the direction. Most of them were in the leading ranks of their own companies, merely because their greater energy had carried them there past and through the ranks of those whose minds were nearly or quite a blank, whose bodies were more completely exhausted, whose will-power was reduced to a blind and sheep-like instinct to follow a leader, move when and where the dimly seen khaki form or tramping boots in front of them moved, stop when and where they stopped.

The roads by which the army was retreating were cumbered and in places choked and blocked with fugitive peasantry fleeing from the advancing Germans, spurred into and upon their flight by the tales that reached them of ravished Belgium, by first-hand accounts of the murder of old men and women and children, of rape and violation and pillage and burning. Their slow, crawling procession checked and hindered the army transport, added to the trials of the weary troops by making necessary frequent halts and deviations off the road and back to it to clear some block in the traffic where a cart had broken down, or where worn-out women with hollow cheeks and staring eyes, and children with dusty, tear-streaked faces crowded and filled the road.

The rear-guard passed numbers of these lying utterly exhausted by the roadside, and the road for miles was strewn with the wreckage of the retreat, with men who had fallen out unable longer to march on blistered or bleeding feet or collapsed in the heedless sleep of complete exhaustion; with broken-down carts dragged clear into the roadside and spilled with their jumbled contents into the ditch; with crippled horses and footsore cattle; with quivering-lipped, grey-haired old men, and dry-eyed, cowering women, and frightened, clinging children. Some of these peasantry roused themselves as the last of the rear-guard regiments came up with them, struggled again to follow on the road, or dragged themselves clear of it and sought refuge and hiding in abandoned cottages or barns or the deep dry ditches.

At one point where the road crept up the long slope of a hill the rear-guard came under the longe-range fire of the German guns. The shells came roaring down, to burst in clouds of belching black smoke in the fields to either side of the road, or to explode with a sharp tearing cr-r-rash in the air, their splinters and bullets raining down out of the thick white woolly smoke cloud that coiled and writhed and unfolded in slow heavy oily eddies.

One battalion of the rear-guard was halted at the foot of the hill and spread out off the road and across the line of it. Again they were told not to lie down, and for the most part the men obeyed, leaning heavily with their arms folded on the muzzles of their rifles or watching the regiments crawling slowly up the road with the coal-black shell-bursts in the fields about them or the white air-bursts of the shrapnel above them.

‘Pretty bloomin’ sight—I don’t think,’ growled a gaunt and weary-eyed private. The man next him laughed shortly. ‘Pretty one for the Germs, anyway,’ he said; ‘and one they’re seein’ a sight too often for my fancy. They’ll be forgettin’ wot our faces look like if we keep on at this everlastin’ runnin’ away.’

‘Blast ’em,’ said the first speaker savagely, ‘but our turn will come presently. D’you think this yarn is right, Jacko, that we’re retirin’ this way just to draw ’em away from their base?’

‘Gawd knows,’ said Jacko; ‘but they didn’t bring us over ’ere to do nothin’ but run away, an’ you can bet on that, Peter.’

An order passed down the line, and the men began to move slowly into the road again and to shake into some sort of formation on it, and then to plod off up the hill in the wake of the rest. The shells were still plastering the hillside and crashing over the road, and several men were hit as the battalion tramped wearily up the hill. Even the shells failed to rouse most of the men from their apathy and weariness, but those it did stir it roused mainly to angry resentment or sullen oath-mumblings and curses.

‘Well, Jacko,’ said Peter bitterly, ‘I’ve knowed I had a fair chance o’ bein’ shot, but burn me if ever I thought I was goin’ to be shot in the back.’

‘It’s a long way to Tipperary,’ said Jacko, ‘an’ there’s bound to be a turnin’ in it somewheres.’

‘An’ it’s a longer way to Berlin if we keeps on marchin’ like this with our backs to it,’ grumbled Peter.

The sound of another approaching shell rose from a faint moan to a loud shriek, to a roar, to a wild torrent of yelling, whooping, rush-of-an-express-train, whirlwind noise; and then, just when it seemed to each man that the shell was about to fall directly on his own individual head, it burst with a harsh crash over them, and a storm of bullets and fragments whistled and hummed down, hitting the fields’ soft ground with deep whutts, clashing sharply on the harder road. A young officer jerked out a cry, stumbled blindly forward a few paces with outstretched arms, pitched, and fell heavily on his face. He was close to where Peter and Jacko marched, and the two shambled hastily together to where he lay, lifted and turned him over. Neither needed a second look. ‘Done in,’ said Peter briefly, and ‘Never knew wot hit ’im,’ agreed Jacko.

An officer ran back to them, followed slowly and heavily by another. There was no question as to what should be done with the lad’s body. He had to be left there, and the utmost they could do for him was to lift and carry him—four dog-tired men hardly able to lift their feet and carry their own bodies—to a cottage by the roadside, and bring him into an empty room with a litter of clothes and papers spilled about the floor from the tumbled drawers, and lay him on a dishevelled bed and spread a crumpled sheet over him.

‘Let’s hope they’ll bury him decently,’ said one of the officers. The other was pocketing the watch and few pitiful trinkets he had taken from the lad’s pockets. ‘Hope so,’ he said dully. ‘Not that it matters much to poor old Dicky. Come on, we must move, or I’ll never be able to catch the others up.’

They left the empty house quietly, pulling the door gently shut behind them.

‘Pore little Blinker,’ said Jacko as they trudged up the road after the battalion; ‘the best bloomin’ officer the platoon ever ’ad.’

‘The best I ever ’ad in all my seven,’ said Peter. ‘I ain’t forgettin’ the way ’e stood up for me afore the C.O. at Aldershot when I was carpeted for drunk. And ’im tryin’ to stand wi’ the right side of ’is face turned away from the light, so the C.O. wouldn’t spot the black eye I gave ’im in that same drunk!’

‘Ah, an’ that was just like ’im,’ said Jacko. ‘An’ to think ’e’s washed out with a ’ole in the back of his ’ead—the back of it, mind you.’

Peter cursed sourly.

The battalion trailed wearily on until noon, halted then, and for the greater part flung themselves down and slept on the roadside for the two hours they waited there; were roused—as many of them, that is, as would rouse, for many, having stopped the machine-like motion of marching, could not recommence it, and had to be left there—and plodded on again through the baking afternoon heat. They had marched over thirty miles that day when at last they trailed into a small town where they were told they were to be billeted for the night. Other troops, almost as worn as themselves, were to take over the duties of rear-guard next day, but although that was good enough news it was nothing to the fact that to-night, now, the battalion was to halt and lie down and take their fill—if the Huns let them—of sleep.

They were halted in the main square and waited there for what seemed to the tired men an interminable time.

‘Findin’ billets,’ said Jacko. ‘Wish they’d hurry up about it.’

‘Seems to me there’s something more than billets in the wind,’ said Peter suspiciously. ‘Wot’s all the officers confabbin’ about, an’ wot’s that tamasha over there wi’ them Staff officers an’ the C.O.?’

The tamasha broke up, and the C.O. tramped back to the group of his officers, and after a short parley they saluted him and walked over to the battalion.

‘Fall in,’ came the order sharply. ‘Fall in there, fall in.’

Most of the men were sitting along the curb of the pavement or in the dusty road, or standing leaning on their rifles. They rose and moved heavily and stiffly, and shuffled into line.

‘Wot is it, sergeant?’ asked Jacko suspiciously. ‘Wot’s the move?’

‘We’re goin’ back,’ said the sergeant. ‘Hurry up there, you. Fall in. We’re goin’ back, an’ there’s some word of a fight.’

The word flew round the ranks. ‘Going back ... a fight ... back....’

Across the square another regiment tramped stolidly and turned down a side street. A man in their rear ranks turned and waved a hand to the waiting battalion. ‘So long, chums,’ he called. ‘See you in Berlin.’

‘Ga’ strewth,’ said Jacko, and drew a deep breath. ‘Goin’ back; an’ a fight; an’ the ol’ Buffs on the move too. In Berlin, eh; wonder wot they’ve ’eard. Back—blimey, Peter, I believe we’re goin’ for the blinkin’ ’Uns again. I believe we’re goin’ to advance.’

That word went round even faster than the other, and where it passed it left behind it a stir of excitement, a straightening of rounded shoulders, a lifting of lolling heads. ‘Going back ... going to attack this time ... going to advance....’

Actually this was untrue, or partly so at least. They were going back, but still merely acting as rear-guard to take up a position clear of the town and hold it against the threat of too close-pressing pursuit. But the men knew nothing of that at the time. They were going back; there was word of a fight; what else did that spell but a finish to this cursed running away, an advance instead of a retreat? The rumour acted like strong wine to the men. They moved to the parade orders with something of their old drilled and disciplined appearance; they swung off in their fours with shuffling steps, it is true, but with a decent attempt to keep the step, with their heads more or less erect and their shoulders back. And when the head of the column turned off the square back into the same street they had come up into the town, a buzz of talk and calling ran through the ranks, a voice piped up shakily ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ and a dozen, a score, a hundred voices took up the chorus sturdily and defiantly. The battalion moved out with the narrow streets ringing to their steady tramp, tramp, over the pavé cobbles and the sound of their singing. Once clear of the town, it is true, the singing died away and the regular tramping march tailed off into the murmuring shuffle of feet moving out of step. But the deadly apathy had lifted from the men, there was an air of new life about them; one would never have known this battalion for the one that had marched in over the same road half an hour before. Then they were no more than a broken, dispirited crowd, their minds dazed, their bodies numbed with fatigue, moving mechanically, dully, apathetically, still plodding and shuffling their feet forward merely because their conscious minds had set their limbs the task, and then the tired brains, run down, had left the machinery of their bodies still working—working jerkily and slackly perhaps, but nevertheless working as it would continue to work until the overstrained muscles refused their mechanical duty.

Now they were a battalion, a knitted and coherent body of fighting men, still worn out and fatigued almost to the point of collapse, but with working minds, with a conscious thought in their brains, with discipline locking their ranks again, with the prospect of a fight ahead, with the hope strong in them that the tide was turning, that they were done with the running away and retreating and abandoning hard-fought fields they were positive they had won; that now their turn was come, that here they were commencing and making the longed-for advance.

And as they marched they heard behind them a deep boo-boom, boo-boom, boo-moom and the whistling rush of the shells over their heads. That and the low muttering rumble of guns far out on the flank brought to them a final touch of satisfaction. They were advancing, and the guns were supporting them already then—good, oh good!

And as they marched back down the road they had come they met some of their stragglers hobbling painfully on bandaged feet, or picked them up from where they still lay in a stupor of sleep on the roadside. And to all of them the one word ‘advance’ was enough. ‘We’re going back ... it’s an advance,’ turned them staggering round to limp back in the tail of the battalion, or lifted them to their feet to follow on as best they might. They picked up more than their own men, too, men of other regiments who had straggled and fallen out, but now drew fresh store of strength from the cheerful word ‘advance,’ and would not be denied their chance to be in the van of it, but tailed on in rear of the battalion and struggled to keep up with them. ‘We’re all right, sir,’ said one when an officer would have turned him and sent him back to find his own battalion. ‘We’re pretty near done in on marching; but there’s a plenty fight left in us—specially when it’s an advance.’

‘Jacko,’ said Peter, ‘I’m damn near dead; but thank the Lord I won’t ’ave to die runnin’ away.’

‘All I asks,’ said Jacko, ‘is as fair a target on ’em as we’ve ’ad before, an’ a chance to put a ’ole in the back o’ some o’ their ’eads.’

‘Ah!’ said Peter. ‘Pore little Blinker. They’ve got to pay for ’im an’ a few more like ’im.’

‘They ’ave, blarst them,’ said Jacko savagely, and dropped his hand to his bayonet haft, slid the steel half out and home again. ‘Don’t fret, chum, they’ll pay—soon or late, this time or nex’, one day or another—they’ll pay.’